Apple Bringing iTunes Festival to U.S. at SXSW 2014

Wednesday February 19, 2014 5:06 am PST by Kelly Hodgkins

Apple announced today that it is expanding its iTunes Festival to the US for the first time. Five shows will be held from March 11-15 during the Austin City Limits Live event at the Moody Theater in Austin, Texas. The shows will serve as a part of the film and music-focused South by Southwest (SXSW) festivals which will be held in Austin from March 7-16, 2014.

The live event will feature recording artists like Coldplay, Imagine Dragons, Pitbull, Keith Urban, ZEDD and more. Performances will be available as a live or on demand stream via iTunes, the Apple TV or the iTunes Festival app for iOS devices.

"The iTunes Festival in London has become an incredible way for Apple to share its love of music with our customers," said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. "We're excited about the incredible lineup of artists performing and SXSW is the perfect place to debut the first iTunes Festival in the US."

Apple's iTunes Festival tickets are available for free and will be given out by lottery to SXSW attendees, who can enter to win by scanning their badge at a location to be determined. Winners are allowed to bring a guest, but that person must be a SXSW badge holder as well. Details on the ticket giveaway are available on SXSW's website.

The iTunes Festival is held each year in London, where more than 400 artists have performed for over 430,000 fans since it started in 2007.

It has been "sold out" for decades. I used to work it a couple decades back, and it was already turning then. Nowadays it is more about the music industry and social programming rather than expression and musicianship.

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